Gettin' My Drink On

It's almost summer and time to kick back with a refreshing summer cocktail.  Here are two recipes I've been playing around with using herbs from the garden.

Orange Mint Mojito

This recipe uses the orange mint that I've been growing, but regular mint would work too if that's all you have.


5-6 fresh orange mint leaves
1/2 lime, cut into wedges
1/4 orange, cut into wedges
2 tablespoons white sugar
ice cubes
2 ounces white rum
club soda


Place mint, lime wedges, orange wedges and sugar in a glass and muddle until the the citrus juices are released and the sugar is dissolved.  Don't rush this step or your finished drink won't be as good.  Fill the glass with ice.  Pour rum over the ice and top with soda.  You can do anywhere from just a splash of soda to a 1/2 cup depending on how strong you like it.  I tend to like a little more soda, but I'm also a bit of a lightweight.

Madagascar Sunrise

This drink gets its name from the combo of vanilla vodka and citrus.  It doesn't taste strongly of any of its individual ingredients.  It is just sweet, light and fruity.  Some of my favorite adjectives!

1 1/2 ounces vanilla vodka

1/2 ounce orange liqueur

2 ounces lemon juice

1/2 to 1 ounce lavender simple syrup, to taste (recipe follows)

In a shaker, combine all ingredients with ice and shake until well combined.  Strain into a glass and garnish with a lemon twist or small sprig of lavender.

Lavender Simple Syrup

1 cup white sugar

1 cup water

3 tablespoons dried or fresh lavender buds (Note: You can use either fresh or dried lavender.  It will be less strong with fresh)

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat and cook until all sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and add the lavender.  Let lavender steep in the sugar mixture until cool, then strain to remove the buds.  Store in the refrigerator for about a month.

Syrup can also be used to sweeten tea or lemonade.  It doesn't taste overly strongly of lavender to don't worry about overpowering your drinks.  It just adds a nice floral element to the background of whatever you are making.

Happy Memorial Day!

I love all holidays so I couldn't resist getting into the spirit and dressing up a few of my planters with some cute patriotic pinwheels.

I also made this flag cake in honor of the holiday.

I've seen cakes like this in blogs and articles for a few years now, but they always seen to involve lots of cutting of cake and reassembling it.  I don't have those kinds of cake skills (or time) so I wanted to find an easier way.  My dad's favorite cake is checkerboard so I already had a set of checkerboard cake pans.  I made one solid red layer and one solid white layer.  Then I filled the outer ring of the checkerboard pan with blue cake batter and filled in the rest with red.  Then its easy...just bake, stack and frost.

My sister's dog seems to like it too.

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day everyone!

UPDATE: I've had some questions about what a checkerboard cake pan is...check it out here:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-9961

Sweet Feet

Lt. Dan Taylor: Two standing orders in this platoon. One, take good care of your feet. Two, try not to do anything stupid, like getting yourself killed.
~Forrest Gump

It's almost Memorial Day which most people consider to be the official start of summer.  This means it is also sandals weather for us girls.  I've always been one of those people who is kind of weirded out by feet so I try to keep mine looking cute.  I've started making this easy foot soak.  Its a great way to keep my feet refreshed and pedicure ready and also a great way to use up some of the giant mint plant in my parent's garden.  Mint is naturally soothing and deodorizing so its great for tired summer feet.

All you need is some epsom salt and plenty of mint.  I used orange mint in this picture because it was what I had handy, but you can use any kind.

Fresh Mint Foot Soak

1 gallon warm water
1/2 cup epsom salt
As many sprigs of mint as you want.  At least five, but really you can't have too many.  I leave the leaves on the stems because it makes it easier to fish them out when I'm done.

Is Gardening Lame?

So whats up with gardening?  Is it cool?  Is it boring?  Is it only for baby boomers?  Or little children?  A series of unrelated events have me questioning the perception of gardening.


Event 1:
My friend who is in a union for work received a packet of tomato seeds.  The seeds were supposed to represent that if the union couldn't reach some sort of agreement successfully the employees would all be 'reduced' to growing their own food.


Event 2:
This article http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2012/05/one-rises-another-falls.html
I really like this blog.  They are really serious about gardening and very dedicated.  I can only hope be be such a good gardener someday.


The part of this article that really struck me though was that it is mentioned several times that gardening is something that people get into more as they get older.


Event 3:
My sister is moving into my grandma's old house very shortly.  There is a big yard that she will not be using most of so I requested that I could plant a small pumpkin patch there.  This is apparently very embarrassing to my sister and she said she would have to explain it to her friends and make sure they knew it was my pumpkin patch and not hers.


So what should I make of these events?  Is gardening actually lame and I just didn't realize it?  I'm going to go with 'no'. Thanks to Al Gore it has become trendy to care about the environment.  And thanks to Whole Foods it has also become cool to eat local, healthy, organic food.  And nothing is more local than what comes from your own garden.  And for me personally, even tending to my own small garden gives me a sense of peace and accomplishment which is priceless.


I'm sure there will always be people around my age who would rather pull out their own teeth than pull weeds in a garden.  But I won't share my zucchini bread with them.  Just kidding, of course I'll share.  Because gardeners are awesome!

Flower Shopping with the Fam

It's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy.

~My Best Friend’s Wedding

Last weekend I went flower shopping with my mom and sister.  As we wandered around the garden section I got more and more jealous of the selection they had to choose from since both of them have plenty of sun in their gardens.  Although I’m getting quite an education about cool shade plants this year it is hard not to be jealous of all the beautiful sun-loving plants that other people get to plant.  I’ll admit I was pouting a bit, but then I found something to snap me out of my bad mood.

It’s a New Guinea Impatiens.  I was so excited when I saw a whole display of these.  I’ve already learned to make friends with impatiens since they do so well in the shade, but sometimes they seem a little plain for me.  I tend to gravitate towards the more exotic looking plants that almost always seem to need full sun.  This variety is the perfect combination of shade tolerant and flashy.  I love the really dark, almost black, foliage.

I was even more excited when I found coleus with similar shades of hot pink.  I’ve really come around on coleus.  I had always thought it was the kind of boring plant that everyone settles on when they need something to fill a shady area.  No matter how pretty, a bunch of leaves never seemed like an acceptable substitute for big, gorgeous flowers.  But now I realize how nice it is to be basically guaranteed color and texture in the garden all summer from the coleus leaves.  I don’t have to worry about how my plant will look once all the flowers have bloomed because coleus always looks nice.  It’s like I’ve been chasing the high school quarterback when really what I wanted was the class treasurer.  So now I’m “Team Coleus” all the way and I love how it looks with my new impatiens.

R.I.P. Hydrangea

Last month I wrote about how I had bought a hydrangea and that I wasn't sure how it was going to do since I'd never had luck growing them before.  Well I'm happy to report that it actually did very well.  It had beautiful healthy blooms for about a month.  Finally, some hydrangea success!  


Since the variety I bought wasn't an 'ever-blooming' variety (meaning it won't flower again this summer), I had to pull it out to make room for new stuff.  Ah, the circle of life.  It moves us all.  (Thank you Lion King).


I do have one small remnant of my beloved flowers though.  This little bloom wasn't quite ready to quit when all the others were so I decided to bring it indoors to enjoy.

Garden Friends and Pests

On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part. 
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My garden has been visited by pests!  Specifically in the form of aphids.  So far they aren't too bad.  For some reason they really like the dill so they are mostly leaving the other plants alone.  I don't use any pesticide on my plants so I've been researching non-chemical ways of dealing with them.  Most of the advice I've found is to blast them off with a strong spray of water.  I don't have a hose or anything so I'm on the hunt for a spray bottle that seems powerful.  In the meantime I'm picking them off by hand and squishing them.  Its kind of gross, but it seems to be working.

But the aphids aren't the only unwanted visitors I've had.  The other morning I heard some light thumping outside.  I looked out the window and saw birds eating my strawberries!  They got the berries and all the flowers.  The strawberries weren't doing that well anyway so this wasn't a huge loss, but I was frustrated to lose the couple berries that seemed to actually be growing.  There is one bright spot to all this though.  Since my strawberry plants were pretty much destroyed, I pulled them out and now I have room for more flowers.  And the best part is that the strawberries were planted in a sunny spot so I'm not limited to shade plants for once.

I walked around the garden section of the Home Depot for at least half an hour trying to figure out the most exciting flowers I could get for a relatively small spot.  Eventually I settled on this pretty Dahlia.  I love the bright vibrant colors.

I've already professed a weakness for garden accessories so I thought I would share a few pictures of my garden 'friends'.

First up is Hootie...

Hootie seemed a little lonely so I had to get him a friend.  My Dad bought me this little fish.  Now I have Hootie and the Blowfish!  Cheesy I know, but it makes me smile.

And finally, what garden would be complete without a gnome?  So here is mine.  His name is Gnome Chomsky...

Spinach and Lettuce Part 2

I had to pull out my spinach and lettuce today.  I'm kind of bummed that they didn't do better and I've been speculating about the reasons why.  I recently read an article about Thomas Jefferson's gardens at his Monticello plantation and it mentions that Jefferson talked and wrote extensively about both his successes and failures in the garden.  Its a good reminder for me that we can learn as much from our garden failures as from our success (although the successes are much more fun).

So I have a few theories about why the spinach and lettuce didn't thrive.  I think they both suffered from a combination of the weird weather we have had in northern Illinois this year (a hot couple weeks in March and then a cold April) and the general lack of direct sun on my balcony.

The lettuce plants had always been a little bit wimpy.  Even after I thinned them a couple weeks ago (which did help some) they still had very thin, weak stems that wanted to flop over all the time.  I think the problem was that I don't get any overhead sun on my balcony.  It only comes from one direction so the seedlings would always grow in the direction of the sun.  I would turn the container everyday to try to even them out, but they still didn't want to grow straight up.  I think because the seedlings were always stretching to try to get to sun they grew very thin and stretched out so eventually they weren't able to support the weight of the leaves. 

The spinach seemed to be doing better than the lettuce initially.  It grew bigger and stronger stems and was actually able to hold itself upright.  But this weekend I noticed that it had started to bolt.   What that means is that it started to go to seed.  After that happens the leaves can get very bitter and not good to eat.  May is pretty early for a plant to bolt, but I have a theory as to why this happened.  Like lettuce, spinach does better when it is cooler.  I think because I was so focused on letting the spinach get as much sun as possible (to grow upright), the container overheated and the soil got too hot.  This is a problem in general with container gardening.  The soil gets warm and dried out really quickly.  Since the weather turned warm last week I've had to water all my plants everyday to keep the soil moist enough.

Bolted Spinach

All is not lost however in my quest to grow greens.  I'm attempting lettuce again, but this time I'm starting with plants rather than trying to start from seeds. I think that will help with my sunlight stretching problem.  There is still a chance that it is too warm now for the lettuce and it might bolt like the spinach, but I've put it in a bigger container and I'm keeping it a little further back and out of the direct sun so hopefully the soil will stay cooler.

I've also planted kale a couple weeks ago since I wanted some sort of dark green for cooking to replace the spinach.  I've never tried to grow it so I don't quite know what to expect.  It seems to be doing well so far.

Strawberry Fields Forever

Let me take you down,
'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
~The Beatles

OK so I don't have a strawberry field, but I do have one strawberry!  I noticed that one of the strawberries was ripe today and because I apparently have no impulse control (and I didn't want the birds to get to it before me) I picked it right away.  I did manage to pause long enough to take this picture.

Isn't it pretty?  I don't want to misrepresent anything though so I should mention that this picture makes it look slightly larger than it actually is...

If I've learned anything from watching way too many episodes of CSI its that you should always have something for reference in a picture to estimate size. My strawberry is pretty tiny compared to the berries you get at the grocery store.  But what it lacks in size it made up for in flavor.  This was the 'strawberriest' strawberry I've ever eaten.  This is one of the main reasons I garden.  The food you grow or pick yourself is always going to taste so much better than what you get in the grocery store and it makes all the work in the garden worth it.

Thank You Martha Stewart

I invented 'It's a good thing' before you were even born.

~Martha Stewart

I want to give a big ‘thank you’ to Martha Stewart.  Not the real Martha, not exactly.  The version of Martha who lives in my head.  You know how in the movie 'Julie and Julia’ (based on the book Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously) the Julie Powell character takes inspiration and occasional guidance from an imaginary, idealized version of Julia Child?  And this image that she has in her head of Julia Child helps motivate her to not only cook her way through a gigantic cookbook, but also to change her life in other positive ways and essentially grow up?  Well picture that same thing in my head, only its Martha Stewart and not Julia Child.  But while Julia Child’s influence in Julie Powell’s life was gentle and lovely (and likely full of wine) the interactions I have with Martha in my head are more of the ‘F-you’ variety.

I first began my antagonistic mental relationship with Martha Stewart two Decembers ago.  I was off work the week between Christmas and New Years and had no plans.  Feeling domestic, I decided to try my hand at baking bread.  I used the recipe from Entertaining by Martha Stewart because I happened to have it checked out from the library.  I saw that it said it would make a lot of bread dough, but it didn’t occur to me the sort of havoc it would bring down on me in my tiny, non KitchenAid stand mixer having kitchen.  The shear amount of dough this produced was so large and unwieldy that I felt a bit like Martha was trying to break me.  My life wasn’t going so great at this particular point in time.  My (now ex) boyfriend had just cancelled a much anticipated vacation with me (which turned out to be symptomatic of greater troubles in our relationship) and I was feeling a bit adrift and lonely. Suddenly this dough had become the one thing in my life that I had to conquer and I started getting mad.  All my suppressed disappointment and aggression centered itself on this poor defenseless bread dough.

Then, out of nowhere I started trash talking Martha Stewart.  “Oh yeah Martha?” I thought.  “I bet you think I can’t do this.  I bet you think I can’t bake these effing baguettes.  Well screw you Martha.  Look at me…kneading dough.  Bet you didn’t think I could knead all this stupid dough by hand, did you Martha?”  Weirdly, this seemed to help.  I continued my imaginary conversation beyond kneading the dough, through shaping the loaves and even misting them with water while they were baking to help form a better crust.  “What Martha?  You didn’t think my bread would have a good crust?  Oh I will show you a crust…”  Before I knew it, I had 6 perfect baguettes cooling on a rack and I was feeling a lot more in control of my life.

The baguettes, by the way, were delicious.

I just want to point out here that I actually have no particular animosity towards the real Martha Stewart.  Yes, some of her recipes and crafts are a little out there and at times she seems absurdly out of touch with the kinds of things that ‘real’ people are willing to do in the name of domesticity.  But overall, I feel like she has done a lot of good and inspired a lot of people to take pride in making a nice home for themselves.  And I do buy her magazine every month.  However, all of this does not stop me from pulling out my imaginary ‘mean’ Martha to help me conquer tough recipes or crafts.  In the past couple years , she’s seen me through pie crusts and candied nuts.  Handmade Halloween décor and dyed Easter eggs.  This summer I’m planning to attempt jam making for the first time and I’m sure Martha will be there for me telling me that I can’t possibly handle boiling all those jars and I’m sure to get salmonella.  I’m looking forward to it.

So thank you Martha Stewart for helping me to challenge myself and prove that I am a creative and capable person.  It’s a good thing.

Ombre Plant Markers

Since my garden is really small, I'm pretty much able to identify most of my plants without using plant markers.  I do like garden accessories though (even if they aren't entirely functional) so I decided to make some for my garden.

I've always liked the ombre paint technique, which is just the gradual blending of three different shades of the same color from light to dark.  I don't like it enough to commit to painting an entire wall in my apartment or anything, but I can commit to a 6 inch Popsicle stick so I decided to paint my plant markers with an ombre technique.

I chose turquoise paint to match my pots.  Here are the 3 colors I used.  You could use just one color of paint and lighten it yourself by adding some white paint, but I was too lazy to do that.

Working from light to dark, paint the popsicle stick or tongue depressor with the three colors.  Each color should be about a third of the stick.  I left a little bit unpainted at the bottom so I had a place to hold it.

Now, using a clean dry brush, blend the areas where the colors meet.  You will want to do this quickly because if the paint gets too dry it won't blend nicely. 

Let the sticks dry completely before adding the plant names to them.  I used a paint pen for this because I have shaky hands, but a thin brush would be fine too.  Or a permanent marker.

I left the backs of mine unfinished, but you could either repeat the ombre technique on the other side or paint it a solid color if you want.

Here is what they look like in my pots:

I think Hootie likes it...

Crostini with Microgreens

When one of my plants dies, I die a little inside, too. 
~Linda Solegato

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I might have overplanted my lettuce a bit.  This is definitely true because now it looks like this.

It’s like a tiny delicious jungle.  I knew I had to start thinning out the lettuce plants if I wanted to give any of them a chance to actually grow to full size.  I hate thinning though because it feels like such a waste.  And I always get this weird paranoia that somehow I’m jinxing the rest of the garden if I start just throwing away perfectly healthy plants.  Clearly I’m terrible at sacrificing a few individuals for the greater good.  This is one of many, many reasons why I’m not president or a general or cult leader or something.

Luckily, inspiration struck me after reading The Beekman 1802 website and seeing the lovely spring salad the guys made using a whole bunch of untraditional and foraged ingredients (like forsythia flowers and pea shoots).  I decided to use the seedlings that I was removing to top a simple crostini.  They are perfectly edible so not only was I able to add something fresh from the garden to my meal, I was able to thin the lettuce ‘crop’ at the same time.  Being a garden wimp does occasionally pay off.

Crostini with herbed cheese spread and microgreens (this recipe also uses chives and dill from the garden!)

For the cheese spread:

8oz. Neufchatel or cream cheese softened

About a cup ricotta cheese

1-2 tablespoons finely chopped chives (my chives are still pretty young so I used more.  If your chives are really strong you can use less)

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh dill

1 clove garlic

1 tsp grated lemon zest

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and let sit in the fridge for at least half an hour before using

To assemble the crostini:

Slice a baguette into half inch slices and toast.  I brushed mine with olive oil and toasted them on the grill, but the oven works just as well.  Spread each piece of toasted bread with some of the cheese mixture and top with a few of the washed greens.

With the combo of chives, lemon and fresh greens this tastes like Spring on a plate to me.  Any leftovers can be used as a dip for veggies.

Garden Update...flowers

April showers bring May flowers

When I first decided to start a garden on my balcony, I envisioned it mostly containing herbs and maybe an occasional veggie plant.  Flowers were much lower on my list of priorities.  Plus it seemed like too much effort to try to find pretty flowers that do well in full shade.   I’m really glad that I decided to make the effort though because the flowers add so much color and life to my balcony.  They make me smile every time I come home. 

What’s blooming now: Early May

I’m happy to report that my hydrangea is still alive.  Not only is it still alive, but it is actually starting to get new flowers.  I’m crossing my fingers that my good luck continues with this.

This bacopa  is a relatively new addition to the garden.  It was a gift from my parents because they knew I was looking for shade plants.  When I first got this one it was a little bit battered from being outside in the garden center and part of it actually broke off when I touched it.  But I replanted it in a bigger container with good soil and it is doing great now.  So don’t be afraid if your flowers are a little windblown or tired looking when you buy them.  Most likely they will come back with some TLC.

The lavender is continuing to grow well.  I had read online that lavender can be kind of tricky to grow, but so far I’ve had no problems with it.  It’s got tons of buds now and some of them are already developing flowers.

This last container started out as a bit of a garden fail.  I planted seeds (impatiens and coleus) weeks ago and have been waiting for them to sprout.  And waiting.  And waiting.  I’m not the most patient person when it comes to this kind of stuff, but it really seemed like nothing was going to happen with these.  So I told the seeds that if they didn’t sprout by the time I can back from my New York trip last week I was going to replace them with new plants.  Still nothing.  So this past weekend I planted these fully grown impatiens and coleus plants.  I can be a pretty tender hearted gardener sometimes, but I don’t feel bad about this decision at all.  I don’t think those seeds were ever going to do anything.  Plus, it’s not like I didn’t warn them…

New York!

New York, New York --
It's a hell of a town.

~On the Town

I just got back from a trip to New York City and I’m so inspired now by all the beautiful parks.  I love being able to see flowers blooming even in the middle of so much steel and concrete.  It’s also a good reminder to me that plants can thrive in all sorts of conditions.  A lot of the flowers I saw were blooming just feet away from busy streets.  I sometimes worry about my plants having the perfect growing conditions, but really they are incredibly resilient.  To quote the fictional Dr. Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park (one of my favorite movies) “If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, ah, well, there it is…I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.”

So here are a few pictures of the parks I visited.  I'll start with the big one...Central Park!

Next up...Tompkins Square Park

And finally my favorite...the High Line.  These pictures don't really do it justice.  Its such a cool experience to see how this old rail line has been converted into the ultimate urban garden.

http://www.thehighline.org/